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ReactOS Runs On The XBox

Posted by timothy on from the bunch-of-weirdos dept.

KJK::Hyperion writes "ReactOS (the open-source Windows clone) has been ported and successfully runs on the Microsoft XBox (screenshot), thanks to the interest and knowledge base of the XBox Linux project and the work of Gé van Geldorp (HAL and boot loader) and Hervé Poussineau (FATX driver)." (Read on for more.)

KJK::Hyperion continues "This port definitely establishes two facts: the XBox is nothing but a broken PC, and the kernel + HAL design that ReactOS inherited from Windows is sound - all of the changes to the core system necessary for the XBox port (namely, the blacklisting of a buggy PCI device and handling the fixed partition table on the built-in hard disk) were limited to the HAL. This is a first, important step towards better portability, as it has already underlined some shortcomings in our build system.

What the port is lacking is hardware support: especially, ReactOS has no USB support at the moment, so it basically just sits there being pretty, because mouse and keyboard won't work. The network and video cards should be mostly identical to their "real" counterparts, so the Windows drivers for them should work (except the video card, a modified GeForce - it's been established we need some HAL trickery to make the Windows driver load). We wouldn't mind some help :-)

To run ReactOS on the XBox you need our custom version of the Cromwell boot loader (not released yet) and the XBox HAL for for ReactOS."

2 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hmm Running a.. by AstroDrabb · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    -2 Idiot!
    Its not like Wine which is so darn close to being an emulator it might as well be.
    Hey, dummy, Wine stands for Wine is not an emulator!

    Wine does not try to emulate hardware. Wine is trying to _duplicate_ the Win32 API under Linux. What is _so_ hard to understand about that? Exactly what is differnt about Wine trying to _duplicate_ the Win32 API under Linux vs. ReactOS trying to _duplicate_ the Win32 API under ReactOS?

    --
    If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
    it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
  2. Re:ReactOS? by ltbarcly · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    you're the idiot. Who gives half a crap if they have managed to get notepad to run on their POS? They can't even run minesweeper on it, except for the native WINE version.

    I don't expect them to ever catch up with Microsoft. That is the problem. No one will ever care about their stupid 'OS' because it will never be as good as the real thing. They will keep making crappy improvements on it until NT4 is totally obsolete and there is no point to it. Then they will start a new project to emulate Windows 20X6 until they realize that they can't do that either before it is obsolete.

    This project is crap. It will always be crap. Even if it was exactly the way they wanted it to be it would be crap. Being open source doesn't mean the OSS fairy comes along every now and then to make it important or relavent.

    It is pointless, because if I am a business that needs NT4 for some reason there is already a product that can give me 100% NT4 compatability, and I ALREADY HAVE IT INSTALLED AND RUNNING. There aren't any corporations that are saying "I wish we could have the functionality of NT4 for this project, but we [just can't afford to buy it|can't find an OS that is NT4 compatible]. There are no home users saying [I wish I could use OSS that was just like NT4 but not as good and can only run 3 programs and is buggy as hell|I wish I could run NT4, if only there were an OS that was exactly like NT4 but there isn't].

    This is at best a hobby OS.